Robyn Denholm and Scott Farquhar
People

Robyn Denholm is stepping down from the Tech Council of Australia board as its two ex-pollie directors are also swapped out

- December 4, 2025 2 MIN READ

Tech Council of Australia founding director and former chair Robyn Denholm will depart the board in February after five years. Her departure comes amid two other changes to the 10-member board, which features several tech billionaires, with its two ex-politician directors also logging off, replaced by two more. Former NSW Liberal minister Victor Dominello departed… Read more »

popcorn
Business

A US Stripe investor launched an extraordinary ‘Reds under the beds’ spray against Airwallex – and the fintech’s cofounders joined in on X to deny Chinese access to data

- December 3, 2025 4 MIN READ

Unless you’ve stayed on Elon Musk’s social media platform,  X – previously known as Twitter – you probably missed an extraordinary rant from US investor Keith Rabois claiming that “Airwallex has become a Chinese backdoor into sensitive American data like from AI labs and defense contractors”. The former PayPal exec – yes he’s part of… Read more »

leigh jasper
Business

Victorian startup legend Leigh Jasper headlines the 2026 Growth Summit Melbourne

- December 2, 2025 2 MIN READ

Leigh Jasper, the serial founder who built construction software platform Aconex into one of Australia’s first tech unicorns, will deliver the keynote opening address at the Growth Summit in Melbourne in February 2026. Presented by SmartCompany and Startup Daily, in partnership with Xero, the Growth Summit is Australia’s premier event for ambitious startup and SME founders and leaders.… Read more »

Accelerator

Startmate CEO Michael Batko calls time after 8 years, Phoebe Pincus takes the helm

- December 2, 2025 3 MIN READ

Startmate CEO Michael Batko has stepped as CEO after eight years of leading the startup accelerator and investor, effective immediately. Taking over is chief operating officer Phoebe Pincus, who’s been with the Blackbird-backed organisation for four years. Batko, who was also a startup founder on the side, most recently exiting his side hustle, Startup Striders, last month,… Read more »

GetSwift
ASX

Canadian authorities ban GetSwift’s disgraced founders, Bane Hunter and Joel Macdonald, for life

- November 24, 2025 6 MIN READ

Failed logistics startup GetSwift’s cofounders, Bane Hunter and Joel Macdonald, have been banned from being company directors in Canada for life. The bans come four years after the pair moved to North America as their ASX-listed business disintegrated amid legal action and relisted in British Columbia. The BC Securities Commission (BCSC) last month placed permanent… Read more »

Business strategy

Startup 360: Kiki’s NYC red card, CSIRO cuts, finding your next startup in your current one

- November 21, 2025 2 MIN READ

Alex Miller was having rapid success with his subscription management platform Hudled when he spotted a nugget of insight in that startup and launched a second, Rechargly. Like a Marvel movie spinoff, he’s now enjoying even more success, as Alex explains on episode 39 of Startup 360. Listen here Cohosts Simon Thomsen and Majella Campbell… Read more »

Life hacks

Research reveals how much money you really need to be happy

- November 21, 2025 4 MIN READ

Over the next decade, Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire. The Tesla board recently proposed a US$1 trillion (A$1.5 trillion) compensation plan, if Musk can meet a series of ambitious growth targets. Australia’s corporate pay packets aren’t quite on that scale. Yet even here, it was recently reported departing Virgin chief executive Jayne… Read more »

Business

Startmate’s Michael Batko sells his side hustle, Startup Striders, thanks to a LinkedIn call out

- November 20, 2025 3 MIN READ

Currents, the Gold Coast startup community-building group backed by Torus Ventures, has acquired Michael Batko’s Startup Striders. The purchase price was undisclosed, and the deal was completed entirely in cash. Startup Striders began in 2023 as a Saturday morning run and coffee meetup in Sydney. Since then it has become a large community with more than… Read more »

Warren Buffett
Business strategy

4 life lessons for founders from a 95-year-old billionaire – the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett

- November 18, 2025 4 MIN READ

For 60 years, Warren Buffett has written an annual letter to shareholders of the company he’s run since 1965, Berkshire Hathaway. He acquired the small textile company for US$18 a share to fire the CEO. Buffett subsequently described it as “the dumbest stock I ever bought” despite the fact that today, Berkshire Hathaway Class A… Read more »

woman in man's suit
Leadership

Book review: Australian author Pip Finkemeyer’s satire, One Story, skewers the narcissism and mythmaking of tech leaders

- November 17, 2025 6 MIN READ

When I began reading Elaine Castillo’s Moderation, a new American novel about the psychological damage of online moderation, I had to pause. I’d read novels that confronted difficult material before, but this one blurred the line between bearing witness and re-enacting pain. The book follows Girlie, a content moderator for a social media giant whose… Read more »

Food and drink

Startup 360: StrongRoom liquidation latest, Warren Buffett’s final thoughts, Australian-grown coffee ambitions

- November 14, 2025 2 MIN READ

This week’s Startup 360 kicks off with cohost Simon Thomsen recounting the two days spent in the NSW Supreme Court this week as senior council for the liquidators of failed medtech StrongRoom AI probed cofounder and former CEO Max Mito, and director Divesh Sangvhi, about the potential insolvency of the business. Sangvhi sold his company,… Read more »

People

Canberra has a new $50 million early-stage VC fund – ACTivate Capital

- November 10, 2025 2 MIN READ

Canberra’s startup community has a new local venture capital fund, with ACTivate Capital securing an initial close of $23 million towards a $50m target. The Early-Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnership (ESVCLP) fund will have a dedicated investment pipeline to commercialise local research and help Canberra-grown businesses scale into global markets. ACTivate Capital will invest at… Read more »